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by MamaDeb (PK_preservation_project), PK_preservation_project



Series: Fire and Rain [5]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-13 15:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21000233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PK_preservation_project/pseuds/MamaDeb, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PK_preservation_project/pseuds/PK_preservation_project
Summary: Janeway and Chakotay reflect onVoyager's thirty years in the Delta Quadrant.The end of a journey - maybe.This was actually written before "Palan", but Palan told me to write his story.





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**Author's Note:**

> Archivist's note: Find Debra's work in other fandoms under [mamadeb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamadeb).
> 
> I had been posting her _Voyager_ stories here (with her permission), under her user name, but AO3's recent changes on co-creators means I can no longer add her AO3 user name until she approves the request.

Captain Kathryn Janeway tossed her long gray-streaked chestnut braid over her shoulder, rolled her stiff shoulders and stood up.

"Okay, Keshia. You take the con for awhile."

"Aye, aye, Aunt Kathryn." Janeway smiled. Somehow, the children never could get the hang of ranks, and Keshia Torres-Kim was special. She'd inherited the beauty and brilliance of both her parents - the delicate ridges on her forehead just enhanced her warm dark eyes and golden skin. 

"If we get an answer, tell me immediately."

"I will, Auntie." Janeway's skirt swished as she walked to the turbo-lift. When did uniforms become silly, she wondered.

"Deck five."

Chakotay was in the nursery again. He looked up from his task and smiled. 

"Hello, Kathryn. I'm just changing my grandson."

"Last I looked, he was *my* grandson." She picked the baby up, kissed him and sat down in the rocking chair to cuddle him.

"How's Nana's little angel, huh? Who's a beautiful boy?" Dignity? Who needed dignity? There was a baby to play with.

"They're all my grandchildren, and they are all going to call me grandpa...where ever they end up. And so will their brothers and sisters."

"Do you ever regret that none are actually yours?"

The soft light glinted off the golden ring on Chakotay's right hand as he picked up a baby girl with cafe' au lait skin and pointed ears. The ring's twin was orbiting a lovely planet 70 years away. He shook his head.

"No. I think...I would still have been the children's Uncle no matter what." It was true. The children (some were in their twenties now, but they were still the children) called the other adults Aunt This and Uncle That, but Chakotay was simply Uncle to all of them. And he loved that role. 

"You and Tom never wanted children?"

"We didn't have time to find out. I was surprised when you and Jack decided to have children."

She remembered that. It was twenty-five years ago, right after Harry and B'Elanna lost their first baby. She was surprised herself. The two of them had gone through so much - the hormones and the painstaking engineering and B'Elanna's difficult pregnancy. She'd actually run engineering from a chair the last two months. And then...the baby was stillborn. And all they could talk about was trying again. They had Kesia on their third try. And Janeway had a human husband who very much wanted to raise a child. She smiled at that thought. 

Jack Pellon was quiet and gentle and she loved him more than she'd ever loved Mark at home. Her son Tommy was nothing like his namesake. He'd inherited his father's chocalate skin and black hair and both their loves of science. He was in the botany lab now with his wife Irene, the daughter of Jenny Delaney and Ensign Batehart. Raymond in her arms was their second child. But Chakotay was surprised. He seemed to have had an image of Janeway as the warrior woman, not the mother.

"Didn't think I had it in me, did you?"

"I'm glad you did. You make a lovely grandmother, Kathryn."

"Do you ever think that maybe we could have made a partnership?"

"We have. We've been best friends for thirty years." Janeway smiled. They rocked the babies in silence for awhile. Then T'Palna began to fuss. Chakotay checked her diaper, and when that proved dry, replicated her some Vulcan mother's milk of the proper temperature. Yes, Tuvok and Vorik's daughter was hungry.

"Anyway, there was Tom. So long as he was around, I couldn't love anyone else. And when he died, I knew I would never love anyone that way again. It took a long time to stop missing him."

"I remember. You were mourning a long time for him. At one point, I was afraid you'd follow him."

"I couldn't cross over uninvited. And he didn't want me to. He told me so. He was in my dreams for months afterwards, telling me to get off my butt and start living again."

Janeway laughed softly so she wouldn't wake her grandson. "Good advice. Did you really think it was him?"

"I was never sure, but it was good advice, so I took it. And eventually, I stopped missing him so much."

"We were all happy when you started dating again."

"I never stopped loving Tom. But I was alive and Adame Ayalla was there. It was good for both of us. He missed his wife and sons and we could give each other comfort and companionship. There's a lot to be said for companionship. Look at this little lady's fathers."

After Kes died, Tuvok and Vorik decided it was logical that the only two Vulcans on board should mate. Vorik proved to be an excellent stepfather for Kes and Tuvok's child, and the two, with the help of The Doctor, had several children of their own. Palan aged more slowly than Occampas normally did, but he'd died last year, having lived his entire life on board the ship. That's why they'd conceived T'Palna. Still, they were more companions than lovers. Tuvok still maintained his bond with his wife.

"Besides, I've always had this fantasy that Tom was still with us, watching us. That's why we found that wormhole five years ago. The one that got us five years away from home."

"You think so?"

"Oh, yes. He told me in a dream." Chakotay smiled. Janeway prized that smile - there was a time when she'd thought she'd never see it again. 

"Home. For the last thirty or more years, this has been home. This is where I raised a family and buried friends. This is where the children grew up. This old bucket is held together by spit and chewing gum and B'Elanna's will. I wonder what they'll do with it when we get back." 

"I wonder what we'll find there. Have we lost it all to the Borg? Or the Dominion? Or the Cardassians?"

"You still hate the Cardassians, don't you, Chakotay?"

"Not as much. I don't think about them anymore. I just wonder..."

"Maybe there's a Ferengi running Starfleet."

"Right. And a Bajorran running the Federation." They laughed, but she wondered. Things can change so much. Look at her. Look at her ship. They were not Federation any more, or Starfleet, or Maquis. They were a large family who didn't bother with any rank more formal than "Aunt Kathryn", who wore bright dresses instead of dark uniforms and spent much of her time playing with her grandchildren. How would they fit in what the Federation would have become? How would the *children* fit? None of them had ever lived anywhere else. 

Both Chakotay and T'Palna were asleep. She looked at her best friend. Now in his seventies, his hair was snow-white and his tattoo was lost in wrinkles. And she knew he was happy. She'd never forget the day Tom died, crashing in a blaze of fire and rain on that lovely planet, or how Chakotay had mourned. That was so long ago now. Tom sometimes smirked in her dreams - always the golden young man who lived to pilot and died as he lived. Maybe he was guiding her ship. 

The past thirty years had been good. They'd paid a price for their happiness, just as Harry and B'Elanna paid for their family, but nothing is perfect. Good is good enough. She kissed her grandson.

"Aunt Kathryn! We have contact! I have a message!" Chakotay woke with a start and both babies started whimpering.

"Shhh, Keshia. We're with the babies. What does it say?"

"'Welcome home, Voyager.'"


End file.
